How was everyone holiday and new year’s celebration? Geoff and I had the chance to take a little road trip to see some family, which was really fun! We got to hit some stops coming and going we’d been wanting to see for a while, so I’ll just get right into it.

First stop was the Arizona Deer Farm! I visited the deer farm with my family when I was about 4 or 5, and I remember it quite vividly. I was very excited to realize that not only was the place still around, it was pretty much right on our way! It’s more of a large petting zoo than a farm per say, and they encourage photographs to be taken. I have a series coming up which is taking a lot of inspiration from deer, so it was very much a win-win situation for me! Thanks to Geoff for taking all the photos that have me in them!

There’s a path for people to walk on, and most of the deer mill about freely inside a large enclosure. They have plenty of places they can go and hang out or take a nap that are well off the path, so they only are interacting with you if they want to. And since you get a big cup of feed when you go in, many of them want to 🙂

Most of the deer are fallow deer; as you can see, they don’t get terribly large, they come in a variety of beautiful colors, and they retain their fawn-like spots into adulthood.

The price of food: one smooch on the head. This one thought it was a fair trade.

Checking my hair for edibility; sorry, buck.

Sadly, my coat is also not edible.

The males have the most stunning antlers of any deer I’ve seen! I took lots of photos of this handsome gentleman.

Once we arrived safely in Kansas, we settled in to the cold weather. They had an unusual amount of snow for this time of year, which was sighed at by all the locals but I rejoiced in. We met up with Erick Riedell, a friend of Geoff’s since Junior High, who also got ordained and married us, and who is also a photographer. In addition to being an all-around great guy, he’s a cancer survivor twice over now. He had volunteered to be a part of DreamWorld while we were back, and I wanted to find a way to honor his battle and triumphs… hopefully I’ll be able to share the result of that shoot soon!

While we were wandering around a snow-covered wood for the shoot, I was enchanted by the fairy-world sparkle the snow gave all the plants. I snapped this shot, which reminded me of the fairy tale of The 12 Dancing Princesses and the underground world where all the trees and fruit are made of jewels.

Little Jewels

On our way back home we stopped at the Wigwam Motel, the epitome of Route 66 kitsch. We’d stayed there once before, and while the rooms are humble, they are so fun to stay in! It looks like very little has changed since it opened in 1950.

A cellphone snap of our wigwam. Those are my gloves on the car trunk, not a wad of used tissues as it appears.

As we made our way home from Arizona, we stopped at The Roadkill Cafe, another historic Route 66 stop. They had great food (which was not at all made out of roadkill) along with a lovely hand-drawn sign honoring the fallen Hotshot firemen. I had an unsettling moment when I saw the sign; my heart sank at the reminder of all the brave souls who were lost that day, but I loved that the cafe was honoring their lives and memories. Regular readers will remember why the loss was hard for me.

So now… on to the first photo of the year! As much as possible, I feel it’s important to start a year off right with my photos. Get going on a direction that will determine a positive trajectory. I wanted my first photo of 2014 to be one I’d look back on proudly. This photo ended up being quite a bit more work to edit than I’d expected, but I felt waiting a little longer would be worth it.

This concept was actually one I’d shot with Katie at our very first shoot many months ago, but it just didn’t turn out quite like I’d wanted. The concept was a DreamWorld character; a wind spirit, or perhaps wind goddess would be more appropriate.

I started by making her an art nouveau-inspired headdress. I remember I’d been looking at one of my books on Alphonse Mucha and had wanted to make a headdress similar to what many of his women are adorned with.

I used my foam head to pin and hot glue sensual, looping ribbons into a headband shape. The forehead and sides were decorated with masses of little white flowers and small glitter-covered styrofoam balls in a variety of sizes.

It was meant to be worn rather low over the forehead, which almost instantly gave it that art nouveau feel.

After that, I hot glued long strands of ribbon to the headband and dotted them with a few more of the styrofoam balls which would help show the blowing wind, along with making it feel more magical.

The second shoot went much better than the first one did!

Where Earth Meets The Sky

Where Earth Meets The Sky – detail

Katie always plays ethereal goddess-types so easily! Her acting chops are so important to the kind of photography I do. We both would like to see this kind of headdress become fashionable so we could just go around wearing them all day, at, say, the grocery store… so how about it? Would you like a wind goddess headdress of your own to help start a trend? 🙂

Thanks to Katie for her patient modeling and to all my readers! I hope your year has been off to a great start!